NATO chief issues chilling WW3 warning over ‘Russia and China twin attack’

NATO bosses fear China could attempt to annex the island nation of Taiwan while Russia launches an attack on the small Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping could launch a co-ordinated attack against their neighbours (Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images )

A NATO chief has issued a chilling WW3 warning predicting both Russia and China will launch a twin attack.

NATO secretary general Mark Rutte said a simultaneous invasion by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin could put the world at serious risk of nuclear annihilation. China would plot to annex the island nation of Taiwan while Russia launches an invasion of a NATO member.

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Mr Rutte gave the warning as he stressed the need for member states to increase their military budgets and re-arm. He told The New York Times: “Let’s not be naïve about this: If Xi Jinping would attack Taiwan, he would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, residing in Moscow, and telling him, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this, and I need you to to keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory.’ That is most likely the way this will progress.”

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Mark Rutte has encouraged NATO members to increase their military spending following criticisms by Donald Trump (Image: Getty Images )

He explained Beijing and Moscow could only be deterred by a strong NATO. He added: “One is that NATO, collectively, being so strong that the Russians will never do this.

“And second, working together with the Indo-Pacific – something President [Donald] Trump is very much promoting. Because we have this close interconnectedness, working together on defence industry, innovation between NATO and the Indo-Pacific.”

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Experts fear Russia could rapidly rebuild its decimated army by 2027, despite sending tens of thousands of its soldiers to their deaths in a failed bid to conquer Ukraine. The International Institute for Strategic Studies said Russian President Vladimir Putin could deploy his army to test NATO’s resolve in pursuing the principle of Article 5.

Article 5 is the cornerstone principle underpinning NATO, which stipulates all member states will come to the defence of any of the others should they be attacked by an external force. There are concerns Putin might attempt to overrun the Baltic states, which were previously annexed into the Soviet Union and were also parts of the Russian Empire.

Russia is re-arming at a rapid rate, according to NATO chiefs (Image: AP )

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Mr Rutte said Russia is rearming at a speed “which is unparalleled in recent history”. Mr Rutte has called on Western allies to increase their defence spending.

He said of the Russians: “They are now producing three times as much ammunition in three months as the whole of NATO is doing in a year. This is unsustainable, but the Russians are working together with the North Koreans, with the Chinese and Iranians, the mullahs, in fighting this unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.

“So here, the Indo-Pacific and your Atlantic are getting more and more interconnected. We know that China has its eye on Taiwan.”

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Kremlin mouthpieces have since hit out at the Dutch NATO leader, saying he had “gorged on too many of the magic mushrooms beloved by the Dutch.”

In a post shared to X/Twitter, ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said: “He sees collusion between China & Russia over Taiwan, and then a Russian attack on Europe. But he’s right about one thing: he should learn Russian. It might come in handy in a Siberian camp.”

World War III will erupt when Chinese President Xi Jinping invades Taiwan and tasks Russian leader and ally Vladimir Putin to attack NATO nations to keep them out of the Pacific, the defense block’s top chief warned.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said it would be “naive” to believe that Xi’s ambition to conquer the autonomous nation of Taiwan would only involve the two countries, predicting that the war would be fought on two fronts.

“There’s an increasing realization, and let’s not be naive about this: If Xi Jinping would attack Taiwan, he would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, residing in Moscow, and telling him, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this, and I need you to keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory,’” Rutte told The New York Times.

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4 NATO Chief Mark Rutte warned that China could tap Russia to invade further into Europe to distract the West from responding to the looming invasion of Taiwan. RUT / SplashNews.com

Xi and Putin have touted their close partnership throughout Russia’ invasion of Ukraine, with the Chinese president previously stating that their alliance has “no limits.”

Rutte’s prediction that Beijing would use Moscow to distract the West echoes reports from the European Union’s meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week, where the official allegedly claimed Xi cannot afford to see Russia lose the war in Ukraine.

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The shock revelation reportedly saw Wang drop all pretenses and described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a blessing that allowed focus to shift away from Beijing’s looming invasion of Taiwan, sources familiar with the talks told the South China Morning Post.

American and Taiwanese officials predicted that China would mount its assault on Taiwan come 2027, as Beijing seeks to annex the independent country.

4 Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, Russian President Vladimir Putin have touted their partnership in recent years. AP

Rutte warned that the world has also seen what a Russo-Pacific alliance can accomplish through the developments of the war in Ukraine, which has already seen more than 12,000 North Korean soldiers deployed to assist Moscow’s invasion effort.

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The conflict has also seen Moscow get its hands on Iranian-made drones, with the EU also accusing Chinese companies of supporting Russia’s military complex.

“So here, the Indo-Pacific and your Atlantic are getting more and more interconnected,” Rutte explained as he backed the call for NATO nations to raise their defense spending.

4 China has held multiple drills along Taiwan as it warned that it will annex the country one day. AP

“We know that China has its eye on Taiwan. Given this whole geopolitical setup, there is no way we can defend ourselves if we stick to this old 2 percent,” he added.

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In order to curb the risk of global war, Rutte said it was imperative that NATO bolster its forces in order to scare Russia from expanding its invasion further into Europe.

He also called on western nations to unite and curb China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific, which has seen Beijing perform several, large-scale military drills surrounding Taiwan.

4 Rutte called on NATO nations to bolster their defenses so that Russia would be too scared to invade another European country. AFP via Getty Images

Former Russian President and top Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev slammed Rutte’s prediction of World War III and mocked the NATO secretary general on X.

“SG Rutte has clearly gorged on too many of the magic mushrooms beloved by the Dutch,” Medvedev wrote.

“He sees collusion between China & Russia over Taiwan, and then a Russian attack on Europe,” he added. “But he’s right about one thing: he should learn Russian. It might come in handy in a Siberian camp.

CNN —

It may be horrific and redefine the world order. Or it may be underwhelmingly bluster over substance. But US President-elect Donald Trump’s second term will certainly be disruptive. And even the most severe American isolationism – the greatest amount of doing little – will likely herald significant change.

We really know staggeringly little about Trump’s foreign policy. He says he likes it that way. We know he’s against wars that drag in America. He seems fond of dictators, or at least strongmen. He likes what he sees as good deals and destroys what he thinks of as bad ones. He dislikes American allies that he thinks take advantage. He doesn’t believe in global warming. His first term highlighted a man keen to be at the very heart of every matter.

But the president-elect is unique also in how little he’s had to articulate his foreign policy positions. Recall the horror that met George W. Bush being unable to name Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in a 1999 campaign interview? Trump would never be asked such a “gotcha” question.

The mainstream media is chewing glass over how it got this election so wrong. A similar exercise in assessing Trump’s likely foreign policy is perhaps in order. To be clear: Trump does not inherit a world at peace, where America’s unquestioning role as a beacon of freedom and moral superiority has brought enduring calm.

The incumbent Biden administration leaves a series of global crises at best unsolved – at worst raging. The current White House may have done the very best anyone could have in meager circumstances. But is it possible that some disruption could be fruitful? Could a chaotic rethink work? At risk of toadying towards an incoming administration, let’s develop that thought for a moment.

Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate on July 26. Alex Brandon/AP

Trump’s first term was of itself relatively uneventful compared with the four years that followed. The end of ISIS; immigration bans and odd insults; leaving the Iran deal while making another one with the Taliban; letting Turkey invade northern Syria; and all that weird coziness with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Biden term encompassed a comparative deluge: the sudden yet inevitable collapse of America’s longest war in Afghanistan; the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and then October 7 in Israel, then the spiral of Gaza, Iran and Lebanon. Trump may have set some of that in motion, but undoubtedly Biden had the busier watch.

Did Trump have any hand in his own calm first term? If you’re looking for a bright spot in 2017 to 2021 – where erratic, angry gestures might have paid off – the assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 is a glaring case in point. I recall hearing the news that Soleimani – not just the commander of the Quds force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, but at that time the region’s most eminent military personality – had been killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad.

Even one US official involved in the operation expressed surprise to me about the move’s audacity. It felt like the wheels might come off the region, if Iran went to the mattresses to seek revenge. But, in the end, remarkably little happened. And the limits of Iranian power – fanned by years of its role in fighting Syrian rebels and then ISIS – became evident. The US could suddenly kill Iran’s most prominent commander whenever it wanted, without major comeback.

Did that lead to Iran’s growing sponsorship of proxies who slowly walked the region into the crises that followed October 7? Possibly. Or did the strike simply curtail Iranian ambitions? We won’t ever know; but it was the first of many occasions in the years to come when Iran looked weak.

Trump’s clear alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks set to benefit the Israeli incumbent. Yet the president-elect’s broader instincts may limit Israel’s options. The endless funding and arming of Israel’s multiple conflicts is anathema to Trump’s wider goal of reducing US global involvement.

He may also be mindful of the damage supporting the war in Gaza did to the Democrats in the election that he won. Netanyahu must surely have completed much of his regional to-do list, after the horrific assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, and may find his victorious US counterpart less willing to bail him out of any new assaults.

The ongoing war of attrition with Iran will need urgent attention. Yet Tehran now has experience of Trump as someone willing to be wildly incautious and unafraid of international norms. If Iran seeks a nuclear weapon, it can expect a very violent US response. Trump may also pre-empt that Iranian decision by attacking Iran, with Israeli backing. As President Joe Biden – who did all he could to avoid war with Iran – leaves power, Iran looks incredibly weak. Tehran must now deal with a US president it allegedly tried to kill and who has shown – four years ago when Iran was more powerful than it is now – he is unafraid of a war with them.

Trump’s mixture of erraticism and pride may have the most impact on China, whose leader, Xi Jinping, congratulated him on his victory while warning the US would lose from confrontation and gain from cooperation. A damaging tariff war may be avoided through deal-making. But above all China must confront the heady mixture of a US president who would deeply resent having to fight to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion, but probably dislike as much being labeled weak if he backed down from such a fight.

Beijing must have frustratingly few signals it can study about the intentions of such a singular and irrational decision-maker, and therefore struggle with knowing when, and if, a potential move on Taiwan would encounter the US boots on the ground that Biden promised.

The earliest, and most risky decision Trump will face is over the continued US support for Ukraine. Any deal will likely involve Kyiv accepting territorial concessions and provide a pause in fighting that allows Moscow to regroup. That will, in of itself, prove hugely dangerous for European security.

But in the current moment we are at in the war, Ukraine is equally in need of time to regroup and rearm. It is losing territory at the fastest pace perhaps yet since the invasion, and would immediately benefit from the frontlines being frozen. It also finds itself at the sharp, bleeding end of Biden’s biggest foreign policy paradox: give Kyiv enough support to not lose, but not enough to let it defeat Russia. Ukraine will one day run, eventually, out of troops willing to fight.

Residents gather next to their destroyed cars and a damaged apartment building in Odesa, Ukraine, on November 9. Nina Liashonok/Reuters

President Volodymyr Zelensky has known the day would come when the idea of another “forever war” became unappealing to NATO, and the world’s largest military alliance eventually sought to wind down its involvement. Everything Trump has said suggests he wants that same exit very soon.

Trump’s grotesque and incomprehensible fondness for Putin makes the details of any deal highly dangerous for Europe and the NATO alliance, founded to confront Russia. But it is a moment Ukraine would – short of a Russian domestic revolt or collapse – have arrived at eventually anyway. Does Moscow accept a better deal hatched with a US president who has been less confrontational and personally offensive towards Putin? Does Putin risk Trump taking greater personal offense if that same deal is later betrayed, and their entente exposed as a sham?

The answers to these questions are for now unknowable. But it would be naive to think they necessarily bode well for Kyiv.

Yet Trump’s ascendancy has not brought with it a new set of global crises and problems. Instead, it means the US and its allies must ready themselves to deal with the same issues with different focus, means and priorities.

That may prove catastrophic for the current world order, and Western democracies as a whole. Or it may force tired societies and alliances to adopt a new spirit of enlightened compromise and impassioned defense.

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.

A top executive at JP Morgan has sounded the alarm about the beginning of World War III, but one expert told Newsweek it’s not time to panic yet.

The banking institution’s CEO Jamie Dimon said in a recent speech at the Institute of International Finance that the current conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East has already begun a third world war.

Dimon previously called Russia, North Korea and Iran an “evil axis” that, alongside China, will hurt institutions like NATO.

“And they’re talking about doing it now,” Dimon said at the event. “They’re not talking about waiting 20 years. And so the risk of this is extraordinary if you read history.”

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon speaks at The Institute Of International Finance annual membership meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building on October 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. Dimon warned about the potential of a WWIII…. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon speaks at The Institute Of International Finance annual membership meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building on October 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. Dimon warned about the potential of a WWIII. More Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Due to this, a larger world conflict may not be a matter of if, but when.

“World War III has already begun. You already have battles on the ground being coordinated in multiple countries,” Dimon said.

Dimon went on to say that the United States needed to avoid being naive and allowing larger global events to play out without any intervention.

“What we should be thinking about is we can’t take the chance this will resolve itself. We have to make sure that we are involved in doing the right things to get it resolved properly,” he added.

Still, the banking leader said there was a chance the threat of WWIII could diminish over time, but the implications could be dire if things continue as they are.

“I talk about the risk to us if those things go south,” Dimon said. “We run scenarios that would shock you. I don’t even want to mention them.”

Russia’s threat as a nuclear power was one of Dimon’s top concerns.

“We’ve never had a situation where a man is threatening nuclear blackmail. That: ‘If your military starts to win, we’re rolling out the nuclear weapons’ type of thing,” Dimon said. “If that doesn’t scare you, it should.”

Dimon said the spread of nuclear weapons is the “biggest risk mankind faces.”

“It’s not climate change, it’s nuclear proliferation,” he said. “We’ve got to be very careful about what we’re trying to accomplish in the next couple of years.”

Once more countries have nuclear power in their hands, entire cities could be decimated, the billionaire said.

“It’s just a matter of time before these things are going off in major cities around the world,” Dimon said. “I think we have to just have clarity and subordinate a lot of things to make sure this ends up right.”

Paul Beck, a political science professor at Ohio State University, said there was some merit to Dimon’s claims, although he wouldn’t concede that WWIII is inevitable.

After the end of the Cold War in 1991, there’s been relative peace between the United States and Russia, but the tide could be turning, the professor said.

“Now things appear to have heated up again with Russia over the Ukraine and Russian efforts to influence American elections,” Beck told Newsweek.

“And of course there is a continuing ‘cold war’ with Iran, which is being heated up by Israel, and Chinese threats to Taiwan. Maybe it is the beginning of WWIII, though I am not yet ready to concede to that milestone.”

Around a month ago, former president and top Republican contender Donald Trump said the United States was “very close to a global catastrophe” after Iran fired around 200 ballistic missiles at Israel.

“I’ve been talking about World War III for a long time, and I don’t want to make predictions, because the predictions always come true,” Trump said at a rally in Waunakee, Wisconsin. “But they are very close to global catastrophe.”

Trump’s administration previously put up sanctions against Iran and also ended a nuclear deal that was originally signed by the Obama administration.

“When I was president, Iran was in total check,” Trump said. “The Iranians were starved for cash. Nobody was buying their oil. But ever since, Iran has been exporting terror all over the world, and it’s been just unraveling. The whole Middle East has been unraveling.”